The leading storm in a cold front pounded parts of Marion County with heavy rains and strong winds early Saturday morning. The storm knocked out power as well as causing tree damage, including several instances where trees uprooted out of the ground.
One of the large trees that fell was in the 1000 block of South Franklin where the front of a home was struck as the tree came down. Another uprooted tree fell across the front of a car on the 300 block of South Maple Street.
There were no reports of any injury.
A number of other tree limbs and sometimes full trees fell in Salem and Marion County. Salem City Public Works Crews were called out to remove the damaged trees from the roadways, one that had blocked South College Street.
The storm was not as severe in Centralia, where the city fire department was not called out to any incidents.
Ameren and Tri-County Electric handled multiple power outages. One outage in Odin that started when the storm first moved through around three am lasted over seven hours. Tri County Electric had most power restored when an outage impacting 475 customers occurred for about an hour late Saturday morning. The Salem Fire Protection District responded to fire alarms blamed on power outages.
Winds as the storms arrived in Salem were estimated at 50 miles per hour. Brief intense heavy rains were also reported.
The storm dumped 63-hundredths of an inch of rain at the Centralia Water Plant through seven Saturday morning. One gate of Raccoon Lake remained open three feet on Saturday afternoon to get rid of excess water from Raccoon Lake. A rain total was not immediately available from the Salem Water Treatment Plant.
A large tree pulled out of the ground in the 300 block of South Walnut Street in Salem and partially landed on the front of a car. Photo by Bruce Kropp.
